Editing Gothic architecture (section)

===Islamic influence===
<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">
File:Al-Ukhaidir Fortess.jpg|[[Al-Ukhaidir Fortress]] (completed 775 AD), Iraq
File:Jerusalem-2013-Al-Aqsa Mosque 04.jpg|[[Al-Aqsa Mosque]], Jerusalem
File:Cordoba, la Mezquita - Cúpula de la Maqsura.jpg|Vaulted central dome of [[Cordoba Cathedral|Cordoba Mosque-Cathedral]], Spain (784–987 A.D.). Ribs decorate the [[Pendentives]] which support the dome.
File:C (203).JPG|[[Delal|Delal Bridge]], Iraq
File:Ar^Raqqa SYRIE 324.jpg|Arches at [[Al-Raqqah]], Syria
</gallery>

The pointed arch, one of the defining attributes of Gothic, was earlier featured in [[Islamic architecture]],<ref name="BF">Banister Fletcher, ''A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method''.{{page needed|date=April 2020}}</ref> Though it did not have the same functions. Precursor of pointed arch appeared in [[Byzantine architecture|Byzantine]] and [[Sasanian architecture|Sassanian]] architectures, This was evidenced in early church building in [[Syria]] and occasional secular structures, like the [[Karamagara Bridge]]; in Sassanian architecture, employed in palace and sacred construction. These pre-Islamic arches were decorative rather than structural in their function.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dcuPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA56|title=Technology, Tradition and Survival: Aspects of Material Culture in the Middle East and Central Asia|last1=Tapper|first1=Richard|last2=McLachlan|first2=Keith|date=2004-11-23|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781135777029|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Warren1991">{{cite journal|last=Warren|first=John|year=1991|title=Creswell's Use of the Theory of Dating by the Acuteness of the Pointed Arches in Early Muslim Architecture|periodical=Muqarnas|volume=8|pages=59–65 (61–63)|doi=10.2307/1523154|jstor=1523154|publisher=BRILL}}</ref><ref>Petersen, Andrew (2002-03-11). Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, pp. 295-296. Routledge. {{ISBN|978-0-203-20387-3}}.</ref> The pointed arch as an architectonic principle was first clearly established in Islamic architecture; as an architectonic principle, the pointed arch was entirely alien to the pre-Islamic world.<ref name="Bloom">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VgwkDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP69|title=Early Islamic Art and Architecture|last=Bloom|first=Jonathan M.|date=2017-05-15|publisher=[[Routledge]]|isbn=9781351942584|page=69}}</ref> Use of the pointed arch seems to have taken off dramatically in Islamic architecture. It begins to appear throughout the Islamic world in close succession after its adoption in the late Umayyad or early Abbasid period. Some examples are the [[Al-Ukhaidir Fortress|Al-Ukhaidir Palace]] (775 AD), the Abbasid reconstruction of the [[Al-Aqsa Mosque|Al-Aqsa mosque]] in 780 AD, the [[White Mosque, Ramla|Ramlah Cisterns]] (789 AD), the [[Great Mosque of Samarra]] (851 AD), and the [[Mosque of Ibn Tulun]] (879 AD) in Cairo. It also appears in one of the early reconstructions of the [[Great Mosque of Kairouan]] in Tunisia, and the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba in 987 AD. The pointed arch had already been used in Syria, but in the mosque of Ibn Tulun we have one of the earliest examples of its use on an extensive scale, some centuries before it was exploited in the West by the Gothic architects.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Islamic Art|last=Rice|first=David T.|publisher=Thames & Hudson|year=1979|isbn=9780500201503|pages=[https://archive.org/details/islamicartworldo00davi/page/45 45]|url=https://archive.org/details/islamicartworldo00davi/page/45}}</ref>

A kind of [[rib vault]] was also used in Islamic architecture, for example in the ceiling of the [[Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba]]. In Cordoba, the dome was supported by [[pendentives]], which connected the dome to the arches below. The pendentives were decorated with ribs. Unlike the Gothic rib vault, the Islamic ribs were purely decorative; they did not extend outside of the vault, and they were not part of the structure supporting the roof.

The military and [[Islamic world contributions to Medieval Europe|cultural contacts with]] the [[medieval Islamic world]], including the [[Norman conquest of southern Italy|Norman conquest]] of [[History of Islam in southern Italy|Islamic Sicily]] in 1090, the [[Crusades]] (beginning 1096), and the [[Al-Andalus|Islamic presence in Spain]], may have influenced [[Medieval Europe]]'s adoption of the pointed arch.{{sfn|Scott|2003|p=113}}{{sfn|Bony|1983|p=17}} Another feature of Gothic architecture, a kind of rib vault, had also earlier appeared in Islamic architecture, and spread to Western Europe via [[Al-Andalus|Islamic Spain]] and [[Emirate of Sicily|Sicily]].<ref name="Bloom" /><ref name="Giese-Vogeli">{{cite book|last=Giese-Vögeli|first=Francine|title=Das islamische Rippengewölbe : Ursprung, Form, Verbreitung |trans-title=Islamic rib vaults: Origins, form, spread|date=2007|publisher=Gebr. Mann|location=Berlin|isbn=978-3-7861-2550-1}}</ref> The early rib vaults in Spain were used to support cupolas, and were decorative. The dome of the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba was supported by pendentives, rather than the vault. These were frequently used in [[Romanesque architecture|Romanesque]] and [[Byzantine architecture]], as in the dome of [[Hagia Sophia]] in Istanbul, which also was supported by pendentives. The Gothic rib vault, among other features, such as the flying buttress, have their antecedents in [[Romanesque architecture|Romanesque]] architecture, such as [[Durham Cathedral]], constructed between 1093 and 1096.{{sfn|Scott|2003|p=113}}{{sfn|Mignon|2015|p=10}}

In those parts of the [[Western Mediterranean]] subject to Islamic control or influence, rich regional variants arose, fusing Romanesque and later Gothic traditions with [[Islamic architecture|Islamic]] decorative forms. For example, in [[Monreale Cathedral|Monreale]] and [[Cefalù Cathedral]]s, the [[Alcázar of Seville]], and [[Teruel Cathedral]].<ref>Harvey, L. P. (1992). "Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500." Chicago : University of Chicago Press. {{ISBN|0-226-31960-1}}; Boswell, John (1978). Royal Treasure: Muslim Communities Under the Crown of Aragon in the Fourteenth Century. Yale University Press. {{ISBN|0-300-02090-2}}.</ref>